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New Comment on "Network Administrator"

ANetworkAdmin — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 14:09:16 GMT

ANetworkAdmin wrote: A way to disable the autoupdate feature? This is more a feature request... As a network admin we don't want these messages popping up on end user machines? i.e. an install switch that disables the autoupdate feature? Or a registry setting we can push to disable autoupdate notifications? ANSWER: Yes, there is - The value you're looking for is named DisableSoftwareUpdate. It's a DWORD value. Set a value of 1 to disable auto-updating. You can also push the registry setting via policy I guess. Place it in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\clechasseur\PathCopyCopy.

New Comment on "Documentation"

jrlopezp — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 01:51:47 GMT

Great job, thanks! I was looking for code to write my own shell and ran across your project. Well done. I haven't done much C++, I'm more of a C# guy but I'll look at your code. Really, what I was attempting to do is the same concept, except a "Send as email..." option instead of copy. Just a thought, if you'd like to implement that. Again, great job. Thanks!

Updated Wiki: Developer

clechasseur — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 22:56:48 GMT

End-User | Network Administrator | Developer

This subsection of the documentation is aimed at software developers interested in Path Copy Copy. It is divided into two parts: developers looking to build Path Copy Copy from source, and developers looking to create their own Path Copy Copy commands (also known as plugins).

Getting the source

Path Copy Copy uses Mercurial for its source control. For those of you not familiar with it, Mercurial is a distributed version control system - this means that each developer has a full copy of the repository on his/her machine. (HgInit might be a good place to start if you're new to Mercurial.)

There are two ways to get the source for Path Copy Copy in order to build it. The first one is to use a Mercurial client to clone the Path Copy Copy repository. The clone URL to use is https://hg01.codeplex.com/pathcopycopy. You can use any Mercurial client to do this. On Windows, TortoiseHg is a popular graphical Mercurial client that works well.

Cloning the Path Copy Copy repository with TortoiseHg

Once the clone operation completes, you can go in your chosen destination folder and see all Path Copy Copy project files.

The second way to get the source is to download a pre-packaged revision. You can do so by going to the Source Code tab and click on the Download link just under Latest Version on the right-hand side. After agreeing to the license, you will be able to download a complete version of the Path Copy Copy project files as a ZIP archive. Simply unzip it anywhere to be able to use it.

Whatever mean you choose to get the source, once you have it, you should probably read the README.TXT in the root directory. This file is a quick list of most other files in the Path Copy Copy source tree and is aimed at developers to read.

Building the shell extension

Path Copy Copy has been developed using Microsoft Visual Studio. Although it might be possible to adapt the source to build it with another tool, it has never been attempted. Make sure you meet the minimum prerequisites listed on the right before you attempt to build any part of the source.

Path Copy Copy is divided into two components, each with its own Visual Studio solution: the shell extension (responsible for adding the menu items in the shell's contextual menu) and the settings application (launched with the user chooses Settings in the menu - see End-User tab). In order to build the shell extension, open the PathCopyCopy.sln file.

The PathCopyCopy solution

This solution contains two projects: PathCopyCopy and TestPlugins. The second project simply contains plugin implementations used for testing purposes and are never shipped with Path Copy Copy. Thus, this project is out of the scope of this documentation. Feel free to examine it if you want.

The Path Copy Copy shell extension is written in C++ and uses ATL. It is made of several different source files. Although this documentation won't dig into the structure of the code itself, feel free to do so on your own if you want to learn how Path Copy Copy works (especially the PathCopyCopyContextMenuExt class and the various Plugins).

The PathCopyCopy project has two configurations, Debug and Release, as well as two platforms, Win32 and x64. The Debug configuration should only be needed if you intend to trace into the Path Copy Copy code, so most likely, you will want to select Release. Also, it is important that each version of Path Copy Copy is built in 32-bit (Win32 platform) and 64-bit (x64 platform) formats, so as to be able to run on any system.

Once you are ready to build the shell extension, simply choose Batch Build... under the Build menu, check both Release|Win32 and Release|x64 solution config of the PathCopyCopy project, and click Build. Building should not take long depending on the speed of your computer.

Using Batch Build to build both versions of PathCopyCopy

The output files, including the final PathCopyCopy.dll, are written in the bin directory under the root source directory. Object files will be in the obj directory, next to bin. Note that the build mechanism will automatically register the DLL, as the shell extension is a COM object.

Building the settings application

When the user selects the Settings... item in the Path Copy Copy submenu, the shell extension launches the Settings application to let the user modify the options. This application has its own Visual Studio solution named PathCopyCopySettings.sln. This solution contains a single project that is written in C# and targets .NET Framework 2.0.

The PathCopyCopySettings solution

The Settings project is a Windows Forms project whose central source file is named MainForm. The other source files contain code to deal with the user settings and plugins. Again, this documentation won't dig into the code. Feel free to explorer if you want to see how settings are changed.

The PathCopyCopySettings solution again has two configurations, Debug and Release, but a single platform named AnyCPU. This is because a .NET application is platform-agnostic by default. In our case, it will run as a 32-bit application if the user is on a 32-bit system, and as a 64-bit application if on a 64-bit system. Again, the Debug configuration is only needed to trace in the code, so Release should be used in most circumstances.

Once you are ready to build the settings application, select Release from the configuration dropdown and Build Solution from the Build menu. The output and object files will be saved in the same place as the shell extension project's, alongside those files. Please note that although the project is platform-agnostic, it is first built in Win32 and then a post-build step is used to copy it to x64 so that both versions of the shell extension will be successfully able to find the application. The application file is named PathCopyCopySettings.exe.

After both projects have been built, Path Copy Copy should be ready to use. Since the COM object has been registered after building, simply right-clicking on a file or folder should show up the Path Copy Copy menu items.

Building the installer

For those who may need to modify Path Copy Copy and redistribute the modified version, building the installer may be needed. Path Copy Copy's setup has been built using the Inno Setup tool. In order to build the installer, make sure you have Inno Setup installed. You also need the Inno Setup Preprocessor, a free add-on. The simplest way to get it all in one package is to use the QuickStart Pack (see the Inno Setup download page).

Building the Path Copy Copy setup is easy. Simply open the Setup.iss file located in the Installer directory under the root source directory and choose Compile from the Inno Setup Compiler toolbar. (Note that if you installed InnoIDE using the QuickStart Pack, it will open instead of the Inno Setup Compiler. The same Compile command exists in its toolbar, however, and works the same way.)

Compiling the Path Copy Copy setup using Inno Setup Compiler

Once the compilation completes, go back to the Installer directory and a new directory named Output will have been created. It will contain the setup application, named PathCopyCopyVersionNumber.exe.

This concludes the documentation to build Path Copy Copy from source. Those of you wishing to develop custom plugins can continue to the next section.

Plugin development

Path Copy Copy has been designed with a modular architecture. Each command seen in the contextual menu is called a plugin internally. It is possible to create and distribute custom plugins in the form of COM objects implementing custom Path Copy Copy interfaces. In this chapter, the sample C++ plugin project will be shown, but it should be possible to write custom plugins in any programming language using any environment, as long as it supports COM object development.

Note: it is assumed here that you are familiar with the C++ language and the development of COM objects using the ATL library. Learning to do this is outside the scope of this documentation. Please refer to web tutorials for more information.

Path Copy Copy ships with a sample Visual C++ project that implements a complete plugin. There are two places where it can be found:

In Path Copy Copy's installation directory, under Samples\Plugins\COM\C++.
In Path Copy Copy's source tree, under Samples\SampleCOMPluginCpp.

The sample comes with a Visual Studio 2008 solution containing a single project, itself containing only one important class named SamplePathCopyCopyPlugin. It also uses a file named PathCopyCopy_i.h that is very important as it contains the definintions of Path Copy Copy's custom interfaces.

The sample C++ COM plugin project

Opening SamplePathCopyCopyPlugin.h will display the declaration of the COM plugin class. In order to showcase them all, the class implements all three Path Copy Copy interfaces.

The sample plugin class' declaration with the Path Copy Copy interfaces

In order to be usable by Path Copy Copy, your plugin COM object needs to implement at least the IPathCopyCopyPlugin interface. The other interfaces are optional and can be implemented only if needed.

IPathCopyCopyPlugin interface

    // IPathCopyCopyPlugin interface
    STDMETHOD(get_Description)(BSTR *p_ppDescription);
    STDMETHOD(get_HelpText)(BSTR *p_ppHelpText);
    STDMETHOD(GetPath)(BSTR p_pPath, BSTR *p_ppNewPath);

Base interface that is required for all Path Copy Copy plugins. In contains three methods:

get_Description: Must return the plugin's description string. Will be displayed in the contextual menu to identify the plugin.
get_HelpText: Can return a help text that will be shown in the shell's status bar when the cursor hovers over the plugin's contextual menu item. It is legal to return NULL or an empty string for this.
GetPath: Main work method invoked by Path Copy Copy when it needs to get the path for a particular file or folder. This method can be called repeatedly if the user selected a group of files. It receives the full path to the file as input and must return a path, modified as needed.

IPathCopyCopyPluginGroupInfo interface

    // IPathCopyCopyPluginGroupInfo interface
    STDMETHOD(get_GroupId)(ULONG *p_pGroupId);
    STDMETHOD(get_GroupPosition)(ULONG *p_pPosition);

Optional interface that can be implemented when working on a group of plugins so that they are kept next to each other in the contextual menu. If this interface is not implemented, all custom plugins end up in the same "group" in the menu. This interface allows plugins to group together and determine ordering. It contains two methods:

get_GroupId: Must return the group ID (see below) of the group of plugins to which this plugin belongs to. All plugins with the same group ID will appear in the same block in the contextual menu, surrounded by separators.
get_GroupPosition: Must return the zero-based position of the plugin within the group. Path Copy Copy will display plugins in ascending order of group position when displaying the group.

Plugin groups are identified by an ID that is a 32-bit unsigned integer. Since there is no real way to know which IDs are already in use, developers are encouraged to specify their group ID using a four-char code, like this:

    STDMETHODIMP MyPlugin::get_GroupId(ULONG *p_pGroupId)
    {
        *p_pGroupId = 'MYGP';
        return S_OK;
    }

Furthermore, group IDs composed of all lowercase letters are considered reserved for internal use.

IPathCopyCopyStateInfo interface

    // IPathCopyCopyPluginStateInfo
    STDMETHOD(Enabled)(BSTR p_pParentPath, BSTR p_pFile, VARIANT_BOOL *p_pEnabled);

Optional interface that allows a plugin to specify its state in the contextual menu. It contains a single method:

Enabled: Called when the contextual menu is built to know if the plugin's entry should be enabled or not. The method receives two information to decide: the path of a file that was selected by the user, and the path of its parent directory. In order to be disabled, the method must return S_OK and set the VARIANT_BOOL parameter to VARIANT_FALSE; any other combination of results will leave the plugin enabled.

Plugin registration

Once your plugin has been developed, it needs to be registered as a COM object as well as with Path Copy Copy. In order to do this, the Path Copy Copy contextual menu extension COM object includes two methods to register and unregister a plugin. One place to do this is in the DllRegisterServer override of your ATL module.

    // In dllmain.h
    class CMyModule : public CAtlDllModuleT< CMyModule >
    {
    public :
        DECLARE_LIBID(...)
        DECLARE_REGISTRY_APPID_RESOURCEID(...)

        HRESULT DllRegisterServer(BOOL bRegTypeLib = TRUE) throw();
        HRESULT DllUnregisterServer(BOOL bUnRegTypeLib = TRUE) throw();
    };

    // In dllmain.cpp
    HRESULT CMyModule::DllRegisterServer( BOOL bRegTypeLib /*= TRUE*/ ) throw()
    {
        HRESULT hRes = CAtlDllModuleT< CMyModule >::DllRegisterServer(bRegTypeLib);
        if (SUCCEEDED(hRes)) {
            CComPtr<IPathCopyCopyContextMenuExt> cpPccExt;
            hRes = cpPccExt.CoCreateInstance(__uuidof(PathCopyCopyContextMenuExt));
            if (SUCCEEDED(hRes)) {
                cpPccExt->RegisterPlugin(__uuidof(MyPlugin));
            }
        }
        return hRes;
    }

    HRESULT CMyModule::DllUnregisterServer( BOOL bUnRegTypeLib /*= TRUE*/ ) throw()
    {
        HRESULT hRes = CAtlDllModuleT< CMyModule >::DllUnregisterServer(bUnRegTypeLib);
        if (SUCCEEDED(hRes)) {
            CComPtr<IPathCopyCopyContextMenuExt> cpPccExt;
            hRes = cpPccExt.CoCreateInstance(__uuidof(PathCopyCopyContextMenuExt));
            if (SUCCEEDED(hRes)) {
                cpPccExt->UnregisterPlugin(__uuidof(MyPlugin));
            }
        }
        return hRes;
    }

IMPORTANT NOTE: Please do NOT try to reverse-engineer Path Copy Copy's plugin registration internals and how plugins are saved. This is not guaranteed to be stable from version to version. The registration interface, however, is guaranteed to always exist.

Questions?

This concludes the developer documentation for Path Copy Copy. If you have further questions regarding any aspect of development (the source, the build system, plugin development, etc.) please don't hesitate to post in the Discussions section.

Last updated for version 9.2

Updated Wiki: Network Administrator

clechasseur — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 22:51:30 GMT

End-User | Network Administrator | Developer

This subsection of the documentation is aimed at network administrators looking to preinstall or remotely install Path Copy Copy on their users' computer. The Path Copy Copy installer supports several command-line options to do so, as well as to preconfigure default options.

Network installation

The Path Copy Copy setup application has been built using Inno Setup and as such it supports all the standard Inno Setup command-line parameters. Here is a non-exhaustive list of the parameters that can be useful to a network administrator. For the complete list of options please refer to the Inno Setup website.

/SP- : Suppresses the This will install Path Copy Copy... message at the start of the installation.
/VERYSILENT : Suppresses the installation and progress windows. If a reboot is needed, it is executed without asking at end of setup.
/SUPPRESSMSGBOXES : Suppresses all prompts, error messages, etc. during setup.
/NORESTART : Prevents setup from restarting the computer if a reboot was required during installation. This can be useful when installing on a computer that could be in use.
/DIR="directory path" : Instructs setup to install Path Copy Copy in directory path instead of the default directory in Program Files.

A combination of these command-line options should probably be sufficient for typical network installations.

Setting default options

Path Copy Copy is configurable via its Settings application (see the End-User tab) and saves its settings in the Windows registry. When it needs a value for a setting, it first looks in the user's own registry key and if no value is found, it looks in a global registry key that applies to all users on the computer (in other, more technical words, it looks in HKEY_CURRENT_USER first, then in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE). The Path Copy Copy setup allows you to configure default values for any setting by using command-line parameters:

/PCCREGVALUEDWORD="name,value" : Instructs setup to create a registry value of type REG_DWORD named name and containing the value value.
/PCCREGVALUESZ="name,value" : Instructs setup to create a registry value of type REG_SZ (in other words, string) named name and containing the value value.
/PCCREGPIPELINEPLUGIN="id,pipeline,description": Instructs setup to create a custom command with the information provided. See below for more details.
/PCCREGPIPELINEPLUGINSDISPLAYORDER="id,id,...": Instructs setup to save the display order of custom commands. The display order is a comma-separated list of custom command IDs.

Each setting in Path Copy Copy has its own registry value name. Here is a list of all available values, their data types, accepted values and purpose.

Value name	Data type	Possible values	Purpose
AddQuotes	REG_DWORD	0 (no) or 1 (yes)	If set to 1, will cause Path Copy Copy to surround all copied paths with quotes (").
UseHiddenShares	REG_DWORD	0 (no) or 1 (yes)	If set to 1, Path Copy Copy will use hidden shares when looking for UNC paths (see End-User tab).
AlwaysShowSubmenu	REG_DWORD	0 (no) or 1 (yes)	If set to 0, user will have to hold down the Shift key while right-clicking on a file to get the submenu with all commands.
PluginsInMainMenu	REG_SZ	Comma-separated list of plugin IDs (see below)	IDs of the commands (or plugins) that will be shown directly in the main contextual menu (see End-User tab).
PluginsNotInSubmenu	REG_SZ	Comma-separated list of plugin IDs	IDs of plugins that will not be shown in the submenu.
KeyLock	REG_DWORD	0 (unlocked) or 1 (locked)	If set to 1, will prevent the user from changing the settings. The Settings menu item will not show up in the submenu and launching the Settings application by hand will give an error message.

Some values refer to specific commands. These are called plugins in Path Copy Copy speech. Each command seen in the menu has an internal plugin ID. The following table lists all plugins provided by default along with their IDs.

Command	Plugin ID
Short Name	{C8757DCA-1BA8-48d0-8145-B93BBB9237AF}
Long Name	{3A42B5C6-72D6-4a8a-BA44-014FA64AA11A}
Short Path	{93B362D1-2B13-467a-B618-6784F24F3BA1}
Long Path	{331A3B60-AF49-44f4-B30D-56ADFF6D25E8}
Short Parent Folder Path	{0929538B-5F52-4480-9902-2BBEC9C84905}
Long Parent Folder Path	{349939D7-780F-43fd-A98E-83D9ADD44E22}
Short UNC Path	{891F9E3E-0B70-49fd-A86C-53B21C6193C7}
Long UNC Path	{EA24BCC3-35F5-46b9-A2A5-A12A0AED2D28}
Short UNC Parent Folder Path	{73188FB3-8E14-409c-95EF-BA608FDC1274}
Long UNC Parent Folder Path	{E2C942AC-917C-4aee-A867-8F6AB960BA76}
Internet Path	{8F2ADCCC-9693-407d-9300-FCCB9A12B982}
Unix Path	{5B5DA5CB-3284-45a9-A1E5-4D6B03107924}
Cygwin Path	{CD50DCE3-9A5C-4adf-B552-1741361567D6}

One switch allows you to pre-install some custom commands (see End-User tab) on the computer. These are called pipeline plugins in Path Copy Copy speech. Since their serialization is a bit complex, the easiest way to do it is to create the custom command on your computer and go in the registry to fetch the values needed to pass to the setup exe. Custom commands are stored in the SOFTWARE\clechasseur\PathCopyCopy\PipelinePlugins key under HKEY_CURRENT_USER. The picture below shows you the various parts needed to create the setup command-line switch.

Please note that if you add custom commands via the setup, their IDs can also be used for any configuration value that takes a plugin ID, such as PluginsInMainMenu.

Questions? Issues?

This concludes the Network Administrator documentation for Path Copy Copy. If you have a question regarding any aspect of the software, you can post in the Discussions section. If something is not working as documented, do not hesitate to enter a work item in the Issue Tracker.

Last updated for version 9.2

Updated Wiki: Documentation

clechasseur — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 22:51:02 GMT

End-User | Network Administrator | Developer

Welcome to the Path Copy Copy documentation. It has been divided into three subsections that you can access via the links at the top of the page.
This subsection contains information for end-users looking to install and use Path Copy Copy.

Purpose

Path Copy Copy is an extension for Windows Explorer (and alternative shell programs) that allows you to quickly copy to the clipboard the path of a file, folder or group of files. A file's path represents the location of the file in the filesystem. It usually begins with a drive letter (except for network paths) and is composed of zero or more directories, ending with the file's name.

Path of this file: C:\Example\Sample File.txt

Having a file's path can be useful to paste it in another program asking for a file. For example, you can paste the full path of a file in an Open dialog box to quickly open a file without having to navigate to it by hand. If you had an Explorer window already open at the file's location, you can save time. It can also be useful when launching a program from the command-line. There are other uses too; it depends on your workflow. (Note that if you are unsure if Path Copy Copy is useful for you, you can try it for a while and simply uninstall it if you don't find yourself using it enough.)

Requirements

In order to install and use Path Copy Copy, your computer needs to meet these minimum requirements.

Windows XP with Service Pack 2, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2
.NET Framework 2.0 (will most likely be already installed on all these OSes - otherwise, install via Windows Update)

Installing

Installing Path Copy Copy is easy. Simply download the latest release by selecting Downloads from the list of project pages above, download the setup exe and execute it. An installation wizard will show up to help you with the installation.

The Welcome page of the Path Copy Copy's installation wizard

Click Next to navigate the wizard pages. After agreeing to the Path Copy Copy license and choosing an installation directory (the default is usually fine), you will be asked to pre-configure available commands.

Choosing which commands are available during installation

The choice you make on this page will determine the "commands" that will be visible in the Path Copy Copy contextual submenu. The default choice, "commonly-used commands only", will probably be sufficient for most users. Please note that whatever choice you pick, you can always go back later and change the commands in the settings application. Note: this page will not appear if you are upgrading from a previous version.

After the wizard finishes, setup simply disappears and Path Copy Copy is ready for use.

Usage

Using Path Copy Copy is also simple. Simply right-click on a file, folder or group of files in the Windows Explorer's window and the contextual menu that shows up will now include two things: a Path Copy Copy default command as well as a submenu containing all commands available. The submenu will also include an item to open the settings. (Note that the commands found in the submenu depend on the choice made during installation.)

The various parts of Path Copy Copy

Selecting the default command will copy the selected file's full path to the clipboard. Other path formats are available by selecting them from the submenu:

Just the file's name.
Short path format, which corresponds to the old MS-DOS 8.3 format. Note that this format guarantees that the path contains no spaces.
The file's parent folder path (useful to quickly navigate to that folder).
UNC paths, also known as network paths - useful if you have mapped network drives or files to share with others over a corporate network.
Internet path, using the file:// protocol and with escaped whitespaces - useful to open the file in a Web Browser.
Unix and Cygwin paths, using forward slashes (/) instead of backslashes (\) to separate directories - useful if you're using Unix utilities.

Options

Choosing the Settings item in Path Copy Copy's submenu will launch an application allowing you to customize some of Path Copy Copy's behavior. This application has a tabbed interface and three buttons at the bottom. To edit the settings and save, press either the Apply or OK button. To close without saving changes to the settings, press the Cancel button.

Note: it's possible that the Settings item is not present if Path Copy Copy has been installed by your network administrator and its settings have been locked.

Commands tab

This tab allows you to choose which commands will be shown in Explorer's main contextual menu and the Path Copy Copy submenu. By default, the Copy Long Path command is shown in the main menu and other commands are shown in the submenu (depending on the choice made during installation). The checkboxes next to each command in the list allows you to change the default layout.

A command can show up both in the main menu and the submenu. Unchecking both checkboxes will cause the command to not show up at all; useful for commands that are not useful to a specific user.

Custom Commands tab

This tab allows you to configure custom commands that can decide how the path will be copied to the clipboard. This tab contains a list of all existing custom commands as well as several buttons to manipulate them. The Move Up and Move Down buttons allow you to organize the custom commands in the order you see fit. The New button will open another dialog to create a custom command (see below). The Edit button allows you to modify the behavior of an existing custom command. Finally, the Remove button allows you to remove custom commands from the available commands.

Once defined, custom commands can be configured to appear in the main menu or submenu, from the Commands tab. Also note that custom commands are user-specific - each user account has its own custom commands (except if some are pre-installed by your network administrator).

Advanced tab

This tab contains checkboxes for the following options:

Add quotes around copied paths: Paths copied will be surrounded by quotes (").
Use hidden shares when copying UNC paths: Hidden shares are those ending with a dollar sign ($). Creating such a share means it won't show up when other network users look for shares on your machine, but if someone knows the share name, it can be used to access the share. By default, Path Copy Copy does not consider such shares when looking for a share path for a file. If this is selected, hidden shares will be considered. Please note that this also includes administrative shares (\\computername\C$, for example).
Always show submenu: Selected by default, this option makes it so that Path Copy Copy's submenu is always shown in the shell's contextual menu. If this is deselected, you will need to hold down the Shift key while right-clicking on a file to see the submenu.

Custom Command dialog box

This dialog, spawned by either the New or Edit buttons of the Custom Commands tab of the settings application, allows you to configure the behavior of a custom command. Each custom command can be given a name that will be used to display the command in the Path Copy Copy menus. Next, there are two steps to configuring the custom command.

Choosing a base command

The first step that a custom command will perform when computing the path is call an existing base command. For example, you may want your custom command to modify the normal output of the UNC Path command. To choose the base command, simply select it in the listbox that is located in the Base Command tab of the dialog box.

Configuring options

The second tab of the dialog box, named Options, can be used to alter the path that will be copied to the clipboard when the custom command is invoked. There are several options to choose from.

Enclose path in quotation marks: As the checkbox says, this will cause the path to be surrounded by quotes. Note: if you also choose this option globally, there will be two pair of quotes around the path!
Change slashes: Causes all forward slashes ( / ) in the path to be converted to backslashes ( \ ), or vice-versa.
Find / Replace: Will perform a find/replace operation in the path, replacing all instances of the text entered in the Find what edit box with the text in the Replace with edit box.

Once you are satisfied with your configuration, press the OK button at the bottom of the dialog box to save the custom command. You can cancel the creation/editing by pressing the Cancel button.

Questions? Issues?

This concludes the little End-User documentation for Path Copy Copy. If you have a question regarding any aspect of the software, you can post in the Discussions section. If you have an issue (either because of a bug, a feature not working as it should or even a feature you would like to see implemented), do not hesitate to enter a work item in the Issue Tracker. If the information you were looking for is not here, you can try to look in the two other subsections, Network Administrator and Developer.

Last updated for version 9.2

Updated Wiki: Home

clechasseur — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 22:48:38 GMT

A Windows Explorer add-on that adds a contextual menu item on all files and folders allowing the user to copy the path in various formats. Idea copied from "Path Copy".

Works on Windows XP or later, both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

The Path Copy Copy contextual menu items.

The extension has a modular architecture where each menu item in the sub-menu is actually a Plugin.
Custom plugins are supported using COM - plugin developers should check out the Documentation section for details.

Note to reviewers: I cannot reply to review comments so I have created a discussion topic to do it. If you've asked some questions in a review comment, please see this discussion thread.

Updated Wiki: Developer

clechasseur — Wed, 09 May 2012 20:09:18 GMT

End-User | Network Administrator | Developer

Getting the source

Path Copy Copy uses Mercurial for its source control. For those of you not familiar with it, Mercurial is a distributed version control system - this means that each developer has a full copy of the repository on his/her machine. (HgInit might also be a good place to start if you're new to Mercurial.)

There are two ways to get the source for Path Copy Copy in order to build it. The first one is to use a Mercurial client to clone the Path Copy Copy repository. The clone URL to use is https://hg01.codeplex.com/pathcopycopy. You can use any Mercurial client to do this. On Windows, TortoiseHg is a popular graphical Mercurial client that works well.

^{Cloning the Path Copy Copy repository with TortoiseHg}

Once the clone operation completes, you can go in your chosen destination folder and see all Path Copy Copy project files.

The second way to get the source is to download a pre-packaged revision. You can do so by going to the Source Code tab and click on the Download link just under Latest Version on the right-hand side. After agreeing to the license, you will be able to download a complete version of the Path Copy Copy project files as a ZIP archive. Simply unzip it anywhere to be able to use it.

Whatever mean you choose to get the source, once you have it, you should probably read the README.TXT in the root directory. This file is a quick list of most other files in the Path Copy Copy source tree and is aimed at developers to read.

Building the shell extension

Path Copy Copy has been developed using Microsoft Visual Studio. Although it might be possible to adapt the source to build it with another tool, it has never been attempted. Make sure you meet the minimum prerequisites listed on the right before you attempt to build any part of the source.

Path Copy Copy is divided into two components, each with its own Visual Studio solution: the shell extension (responsible for adding the menu items in the shell's contextual menu) and the settings application (launched with the user chooses Settings in the menu - see End-User tab). In order to build the shell extension, open the PathCopyCopy.sln file.

^{The PathCopyCopy solution}

This solution contains two projects: PathCopyCopy and TestPlugins. The second project simply contains plugin implementations used for testing purposes and are never shipped with Path Copy Copy. Thus, this project is out of the scope of this documentation. Feel free to examine it if you want.

The Path Copy Copy shell extension is written in C++ and uses ATL. It is made of several different source files. Although this documentation won't dig into the structure of the code itself, feel free to do so on your own if you want to learn how Path Copy Copy works (especially the PathCopyCopyContextMenuExt class and the various Plugins).

The PathCopyCopy project has two configurations, Debug and Release, as well as two platforms, Win32 and x64. The Debug configuration should only be needed if you intend to trace into the Path Copy Copy code, so most likely, you will want to select Release. Also, it is important that each version of Path Copy Copy is built in 32-bit (Win32 platform) and 64-bit (x64 platform) formats, so as to be able to run on any system.

Once you are ready to build the shell extension, simply choose Batch Build... under the Build menu, check both Release|Win32 and Release|x64 solution config of the PathCopyCopy project, and click Build. Building should not take long depending on the speed of your computer.

^{Using Batch Build to build both versions of PathCopyCopy}

The output files, including the final PathCopyCopy.dll, are written in the bin directory under the root source directory. Object files will be in the obj directory, next to bin. Note that the build mechanism will automatically register the DLL, as the shell extension is a COM object.

Building the settings application

When the user selects the Settings... item in the Path Copy Copy submenu, the shell extension launches the Settings application to let the user modify the options. This application has its own Visual Studio solution named PathCopyCopySettings.sln. This solution contains a single project that is written in C# and targets .NET Framework 2.0.

^{The PathCopyCopySettings solution}

The Settings project is a Windows Forms project whose central source file is named MainForm. The other source files contain code to deal with the user settings and plugins. Again, this documentation won't dig into the code. Feel free to explorer if you want to see how settings are changed.

The PathCopyCopySettings solution again has two configurations, Debug and Release, but a single platform named AnyCPU. This is because a .NET application is platform-agnostic by default. In our case, it will run as a 32-bit application if the user is on a 32-bit system, and as a 64-bit application if on a 64-bit system. Again, the Debug configuration is only needed to trace in the code, so Release should be used in most circumstances.

Once you are ready to build the settings application, select Release from the configuration dropdown and Build Solution from the Build menu. The output and object files will be saved in the same place as the shell extension project's, alongside those files. Please note that although the project is platform-agnostic, it is first built in Win32 and then a post-build step is used to copy it to x64 so that both versions of the shell extension will be successfully able to find the application. The application file is named PathCopyCopySettings.exe.

After both projects have been built, Path Copy Copy should be ready to use. Since the COM object has been registered after building, simply right-clicking on a file or folder should show up the Path Copy Copy menu items.

Building the installer

For those who may need to modify Path Copy Copy and redistribute the modified version, building the installer may be needed. Path Copy Copy's setup has been built using the Inno Setup tool. In order to build the installer, make sure you have Inno Setup installed. You also need the Inno Setup Preprocessor, a free add-on. The simplest way to get it all in one package is to use the QuickStart Pack (see the Inno Setup download page).

Building the Path Copy Copy setup is easy. Simply open the Setup.iss file located in the Installer directory under the root source directory and choose Compile from the Inno Setup Compiler toolbar. (Note that if you installed InnoIDE using the QuickStart Pack, it will open instead of the Inno Setup Compiler. The same Compile command exists in its toolbar, however, and works the same way.)

^{Compiling the Path Copy Copy setup using Inno Setup Compiler}

Once the compilation completes, go back to the Installer directory and a new directory named Output will have been created. It will contain the setup application, named PathCopyCopyVersionNumber.exe.

This concludes the documentation to build Path Copy Copy from source. Those of you wishing to develop custom plugins can continue to the next section.

Plugin development

In Path Copy Copy's installation directory, under Samples\Plugins\COM\C++.
In Path Copy Copy's source tree, under Samples\SampleCOMPluginCpp.

The sample comes with a Visual Studio 2008 solution containing a single project, itself containing only one important class named SamplePathCopyCopyPlugin. It also uses a file named PathCopyCopy_i.h that is very important as it contains the definintions of Path Copy Copy's custom interfaces.

^{The sample C++ COM plugin project}

Opening SamplePathCopyCopyPlugin.h will display the declaration of the COM plugin class. In order to showcase them all, the class implements all three Path Copy Copy interfaces.

^{The sample plugin class' declaration with the Path Copy Copy interfaces}

In order to be usable by Path Copy Copy, your plugin COM object needs to implement at least the IPathCopyCopyPlugin interface. The other interfaces are optional and can be implemented only if needed.

IPathCopyCopyPlugin interface

    // IPathCopyCopyPlugin interface
    STDMETHOD(get_Description)(BSTR *p_ppDescription);
    STDMETHOD(get_HelpText)(BSTR *p_ppHelpText);
    STDMETHOD(GetPath)(BSTR p_pPath, BSTR *p_ppNewPath);

Base interface that is required for all Path Copy Copy plugins. In contains three methods:

get_Description: Must return the plugin's description string. Will be displayed in the contextual menu to identify the plugin.
get_HelpText: Can return a help text that will be shown in the shell's status bar when the cursor hovers over the plugin's contextual menu item. It is legal to return NULL or an empty string for this.
GetPath: Main work method invoked by Path Copy Copy when it needs to get the path for a particular file or folder. This method can be called repeatedly if the user selected a group of files. It receives the full path to the file as input and must return a path, modified as needed.

IPathCopyCopyPluginGroupInfo interface

    // IPathCopyCopyPluginGroupInfo interface
    STDMETHOD(get_GroupId)(ULONG *p_pGroupId);
    STDMETHOD(get_GroupPosition)(ULONG *p_pPosition);

get_GroupId: Must return the group ID (see below) of the group of plugins to which this plugin belongs to. All plugins with the same group ID will appear in the same block in the contextual menu, surrounded by separators.
get_GroupPosition: Must return the zero-based position of the plugin within the group. Path Copy Copy will display plugins in ascending order of group position when displaying the group.

    STDMETHODIMP MyPlugin::get_GroupId(ULONG *p_pGroupId)
    {
        *p_pGroupId = 'MYGP';
        return S_OK;
    }

Furthermore, group IDs composed of all lowercase letters are considered reserved for internal use.

IPathCopyCopyStateInfo interface

    // IPathCopyCopyPluginStateInfo
    STDMETHOD(Enabled)(BSTR p_pParentPath, BSTR p_pFile, VARIANT_BOOL *p_pEnabled);

Optional interface that allows a plugin to specify its state in the contextual menu. It contains a single method:

Enabled: Called when the contextual menu is built to know if the plugin's entry should be enabled or not. The method receives two information to decide: the path of a file that was selected by the user, and the path of its parent directory. In order to be disabled, the method must return S_OK and set the VARIANT_BOOL parameter to VARIANT_FALSE; any other combination of results will leave the plugin enabled.

Plugin registration

    // In dllmain.h
    class CMyModule : public CAtlDllModuleT< CMyModule >
    {
    public :
        DECLARE_LIBID(...)
        DECLARE_REGISTRY_APPID_RESOURCEID(...)

        HRESULT DllRegisterServer(BOOL bRegTypeLib = TRUE) throw();
        HRESULT DllUnregisterServer(BOOL bUnRegTypeLib = TRUE) throw();
    };

    // In dllmain.cpp
    HRESULT CMyModule::DllRegisterServer( BOOL bRegTypeLib /*= TRUE*/ ) throw()
    {
        HRESULT hRes = CAtlDllModuleT< CMyModule >::DllRegisterServer(bRegTypeLib);
        if (SUCCEEDED(hRes)) {
            CComPtr<IPathCopyCopyContextMenuExt> cpPccExt;
            hRes = cpPccExt.CoCreateInstance(__uuidof(PathCopyCopyContextMenuExt));
            if (SUCCEEDED(hRes)) {
                cpPccExt->RegisterPlugin(__uuidof(MyPlugin));
            }
        }
        return hRes;
    }

    HRESULT CMyModule::DllUnregisterServer( BOOL bUnRegTypeLib /*= TRUE*/ ) throw()
    {
        HRESULT hRes = CAtlDllModuleT< CMyModule >::DllUnregisterServer(bUnRegTypeLib);
        if (SUCCEEDED(hRes)) {
            CComPtr<IPathCopyCopyContextMenuExt> cpPccExt;
            hRes = cpPccExt.CoCreateInstance(__uuidof(PathCopyCopyContextMenuExt));
            if (SUCCEEDED(hRes)) {
                cpPccExt->UnregisterPlugin(__uuidof(MyPlugin));
            }
        }
        return hRes;
    }

Questions?

Updated Wiki: Documentation

clechasseur — Wed, 09 May 2012 20:05:48 GMT

End-User | Network Administrator | Developer

Purpose

Path Copy Copy is an extension for Windows Explorer (and alternative shell programs) that allows you to quickly copy to the clipboard the path of a file, folder or group of files. A file's path represents the location of the file in the filesystem. It usually begins with a drive letter (except for network paths) and is composed of zero or more directories, ending with the file's name.

^{Path of this file: C:\Example\Sample File.txt}

Having a file's path can be useful to paste it in another program asking for a file. For example, you can paste the full path of a file in an Open dialog box to quickly open a file without having to navigate to it by hand. If you had an Explorer window already open at the file's location, you can save time. It can also be useful when launching a program from the command-line. There are other uses too; it depends on your workflow. (Note that if you are unsure if Path Copy Copy is useful for you, you can try it for a while and simply uninstall it if you don't find yourself using it enough.)

Requirements

In order to install and use Path Copy Copy, your computer needs to meet these minimum requirements.

Windows XP with Service Pack 2, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2
.NET Framework 2.0 (will most likely be already installed on all these OSes - otherwise, install via Windows Update)

Installing

Installing Path Copy Copy is easy. Simply download the latest release by selecting Downloads from the list of project pages above, download the setup exe and execute it. An installation wizard will show up to help you with the installation.

^{The Welcome page of the Path Copy Copy's installation wizard}

Click Next to navigate the wizard pages. After agreeing to the Path Copy Copy license and choosing an installation directory (the default is usually fine), you will be asked to pre-configure available commands.

^{Choosing which commands are available during installation}

The choice you make on this page will determine the "commands" that will be visible in the Path Copy Copy contextual submenu. The default choice, "commonly-used commands only", will probably be sufficient for most users. Please note that whatever choice you pick, you can always go back later and change the commands in the settings application. Note: this page will not appear if you are upgrading from a previous version.

After the wizard finishes, setup simply disappears and Path Copy Copy is ready for use.

Usage

Using Path Copy Copy is also simple. Simply right-click on a file, folder or group of files in the Windows Explorer's window and the contextual menu that shows up will now include two things: a Path Copy Copy default command as well as a submenu containing all commands available. The submenu will also include an item to open the settings. (Note that the commands found in the submenu depend on the choice made during installation.)

^{The various parts of Path Copy Copy}

Selecting the default command will copy the selected file's full path to the clipboard. Other path formats are available by selecting them from the submenu:

Just the file's name.
Short path format, which corresponds to the old MS-DOS 8.3 format. Note that this format guarantees that the path contains no spaces.
The file's parent folder path (useful to quickly navigate to that folder).
UNC paths, also known as network paths - useful if you have mapped network drives or files to share with others over a corporate network.
Internet path, using the file:// protocol and with escaped whitespaces - useful to open the file in a Web Browser.
Unix and Cygwin paths, using forward slashes (/) instead of backslashes (\) to separate directories - useful if you're using Unix utilities.

Options

Commands tab

Custom Commands tab

Advanced tab

This tab contains checkboxes for the following options:

Add quotes around copied paths: Paths copied will be surrounded by quotes (").
Use hidden shares when copying UNC paths: Hidden shares are those ending with a dollar sign ($). Creating such a share means it won't show up when other network users look for shares on your machine, but if someone knows the share name, it can be used to access the share. By default, Path Copy Copy does not consider such shares when looking for a share path for a file. If this is selected, hidden shares will be considered. Please note that this also includes administrative shares (\\computername\C$, for example).
Always show submenu: Selected by default, this option makes it so that Path Copy Copy's submenu is always shown in the shell's contextual menu. If this is deselected, you will need to hold down the Shift key while right-clicking on a file to see the submenu.

Custom Command dialog box

Choosing a base command

Configuring options

The second tab of the dialog box, named Options, can be used to alter the path that will be copied to the clipboard when the custom command is invoked. There are several options to choose from.

Enclose path in quotation marks: As the checkbox says, this will cause the path to be surrounded by quotes. Note: if you also choose this option globally, there will be two pair of quotes around the path!
Change slashes: Causes all forward slashes ( / ) in the path to be converted to backslashes ( \ ), or vice-versa.
Find / Replace: Will perform a find/replace operation in the path, replacing all instances of the text entered in the Find what edit box with the text in the Replace with edit box.

Once you are satisfied with your configuration, press the OK button at the bottom of the dialog box to save the custom command. You can cancel the creation/editing by pressing the Cancel button.

Questions? Issues?

Updated Wiki: Home

clechasseur — Wed, 09 May 2012 20:03:03 GMT

^{The Path Copy Copy contextual menu items.}

The extension has a modular architecture where each menu item in the sub-menu is actually a Plugin.
Custom plugins are supported using COM - plugin developers should check out the Documentation section for details.

Note to reviewers: I cannot reply to review comments so I have created a discussion topic to do it. If you've asked some questions in a review comment, please see this discussion thread.

Updated Wiki: Developer

clechasseur — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 15:53:44 GMT

End-User | Network Administrator | Developer

Getting the source

Cloning the Path Copy Copy repository with TortoiseHg

Once the clone operation completes, you can go in your chosen destination folder and see all Path Copy Copy project files.

The second way to get the source is to download a pre-packaged revision. You can do so by going to the Source Code tab and click on the Download link just under Latest Version on the right-hand side. After agreeing to the license, you will be able to download a complete version of the Path Copy Copy project files as a ZIP archive. Simply unzip it anywhere to be able to use it.

Whatever mean you choose to get the source, once you have it, you should probably read the README.TXT in the root directory. This file is a quick list of most other files in the Path Copy Copy source tree and is aimed at developers to read.

Building the shell extension

The PathCopyCopy solution

This solution contains two projects: PathCopyCopy and TestPlugins. The second project simply contains plugin implementations used for testing purposes and are never shipped with Path Copy Copy. Thus, this project is out of the scope of this documentation. Feel free to examine it if you want.

The Path Copy Copy shell extension is written in C++ and uses ATL. It is made of several different source files. Although this documentation won't dig into the structure of the code itself, feel free to do so on your own if you want to learn how Path Copy Copy works (especially the PathCopyCopyContextMenuExt class and the various Plugins).

The PathCopyCopy project has two configurations, Debug and Release, as well as two platforms, Win32 and x64. The Debug configuration should only be needed if you intend to trace into the Path Copy Copy code, so most likely, you will want to select Release. Also, it is important that each version of Path Copy Copy is built in 32-bit (Win32 platform) and 64-bit (x64 platform) formats, so as to be able to run on any system.

Once you are ready to build the shell extension, simply choose Batch Build... under the Build menu, check both Release|Win32 and Release|x64 solution config of the PathCopyCopy project, and click Build. Building should not take long depending on the speed of your computer.

Using Batch Build to build both versions of PathCopyCopy

The output files, including the final PathCopyCopy.dll, are written in the bin directory under the root source directory. Object files will be in the obj directory, next to bin. Note that the build mechanism will automatically register the DLL, as the shell extension is a COM object.

Building the settings application

The PathCopyCopySettings solution

The Settings project is a Windows Forms project whose central source file is named MainForm. The other source files contain code to deal with the user settings and plugins. Again, this documentation won't dig into the code. Feel free to explorer if you want to see how settings are changed.

The PathCopyCopySettings solution again has two configurations, Debug and Release, but a single platform named AnyCPU. This is because a .NET application is platform-agnostic by default. In our case, it will run as a 32-bit application if the user is on a 32-bit system, and as a 64-bit application if on a 64-bit system. Again, the Debug configuration is only needed to trace in the code, so Release should be used in most circumstances.

Once you are ready to build the settings application, select Release from the configuration dropdown and Build Solution from the Build menu. The output and object files will be saved in the same place as the shell extension project's, alongside those files. Please note that although the project is platform-agnostic, it is first built in Win32 and then a post-build step is used to copy it to x64 so that both versions of the shell extension will be successfully able to find the application. The application file is named PathCopyCopySettings.exe.

After both projects have been built, Path Copy Copy should be ready to use. Since the COM object has been registered after building, simply right-clicking on a file or folder should show up the Path Copy Copy menu items.

Building the installer

Compiling the Path Copy Copy setup using Inno Setup Compiler

Once the compilation completes, go back to the Installer directory and a new directory named Output will have been created. It will contain the setup application, named PathCopyCopyVersionNumber.exe.

This concludes the documentation to build Path Copy Copy from source. Those of you wishing to develop custom plugins can continue to the next section.

Plugin development

In Path Copy Copy's installation directory, under Samples\Plugins\COM\C++.
In Path Copy Copy's source tree, under Samples\SampleCOMPluginCpp.

The sample C++ COM plugin project

Opening SamplePathCopyCopyPlugin.h will display the declaration of the COM plugin class. In order to showcase them all, the class implements all three Path Copy Copy interfaces.

The sample plugin class' declaration with the Path Copy Copy interfaces

In order to be usable by Path Copy Copy, your plugin COM object needs to implement at least the IPathCopyCopyPlugin interface. The other interfaces are optional and can be implemented only if needed.

IPathCopyCopyPlugin interface

    // IPathCopyCopyPlugin interface
    STDMETHOD(get_Description)(BSTR *p_ppDescription);
    STDMETHOD(get_HelpText)(BSTR *p_ppHelpText);
    STDMETHOD(GetPath)(BSTR p_pPath, BSTR *p_ppNewPath);

Base interface that is required for all Path Copy Copy plugins. In contains three methods:

get_Description: Must return the plugin's description string. Will be displayed in the contextual menu to identify the plugin.
get_HelpText: Can return a help text that will be shown in the shell's status bar when the cursor hovers over the plugin's contextual menu item. It is legal to return NULL or an empty string for this.
GetPath: Main work method invoked by Path Copy Copy when it needs to get the path for a particular file or folder. This method can be called repeatedly if the user selected a group of files. It receives the full path to the file as input and must return a path, modified as needed.

IPathCopyCopyPluginGroupInfo interface

    // IPathCopyCopyPluginGroupInfo interface
    STDMETHOD(get_GroupId)(ULONG *p_pGroupId);
    STDMETHOD(get_GroupPosition)(ULONG *p_pPosition);

get_GroupId: Must return the group ID (see below) of the group of plugins to which this plugin belongs to. All plugins with the same group ID will appear in the same block in the contextual menu, surrounded by separators.
get_GroupPosition: Must return the zero-based position of the plugin within the group. Path Copy Copy will display plugins in ascending order of group position when displaying the group.

    STDMETHODIMP MyPlugin::get_GroupId(ULONG *p_pGroupId)
    {
        *p_pGroupId = 'MYGP';
        return S_OK;
    }

Furthermore, group IDs composed of all lowercase letters are considered reserved for internal use.

IPathCopyCopyStateInfo interface

    // IPathCopyCopyPluginStateInfo
    STDMETHOD(Enabled)(BSTR p_pParentPath, BSTR p_pFile, VARIANT_BOOL *p_pEnabled);

Optional interface that allows a plugin to specify its state in the contextual menu. It contains a single method:

Enabled: Called when the contextual menu is built to know if the plugin's entry should be enabled or not. The method receives two information to decide: the path of a file that was selected by the user, and the path of its parent directory. In order to be disabled, the method must return S_OK and set the VARIANT_BOOL parameter to VARIANT_FALSE; any other combination of results will leave the plugin enabled.

Plugin registration

    // In dllmain.h
    class CMyModule : public CAtlDllModuleT< CMyModule >
    {
    public :
        DECLARE_LIBID(...)
        DECLARE_REGISTRY_APPID_RESOURCEID(...)

        HRESULT DllRegisterServer(BOOL bRegTypeLib = TRUE) throw();
        HRESULT DllUnregisterServer(BOOL bUnRegTypeLib = TRUE) throw();
    };

    // In dllmain.cpp
    HRESULT CMyModule::DllRegisterServer( BOOL bRegTypeLib /*= TRUE*/ ) throw()
    {
        HRESULT hRes = CAtlDllModuleT< CMyModule >::DllRegisterServer(bRegTypeLib);
        if (SUCCEEDED(hRes)) {
            CComPtr<IPathCopyCopyContextMenuExt> cpPccExt;
            hRes = cpPccExt.CoCreateInstance(__uuidof(PathCopyCopyContextMenuExt));
            if (SUCCEEDED(hRes)) {
                cpPccExt->RegisterPlugin(__uuidof(MyPlugin));
            }
        }
        return hRes;
    }

    HRESULT CMyModule::DllUnregisterServer( BOOL bUnRegTypeLib /*= TRUE*/ ) throw()
    {
        HRESULT hRes = CAtlDllModuleT< CMyModule >::DllUnregisterServer(bUnRegTypeLib);
        if (SUCCEEDED(hRes)) {
            CComPtr<IPathCopyCopyContextMenuExt> cpPccExt;
            hRes = cpPccExt.CoCreateInstance(__uuidof(PathCopyCopyContextMenuExt));
            if (SUCCEEDED(hRes)) {
                cpPccExt->UnregisterPlugin(__uuidof(MyPlugin));
            }
        }
        return hRes;
    }

Questions?

Updated Wiki: Network Administrator

clechasseur — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:38:17 GMT

End-User | Network Administrator | Developer

Network installation

/SP- : Suppresses the This will install Path Copy Copy... message at the start of the installation.
/VERYSILENT : Suppresses the installation and progress windows. If a reboot is needed, it is executed without asking at end of setup.
/SUPPRESSMSGBOXES : Suppresses all prompts, error messages, etc. during setup.
/NORESTART : Prevents setup from restarting the computer if a reboot was required during installation. This can be useful when installing on a computer that could be in use.
/DIR="directory path" : Instructs setup to install Path Copy Copy in directory path instead of the default directory in Program Files.

A combination of these command-line options should probably be sufficient for typical network installations.

Setting default options

/PCCREGVALUEDWORD="name,value" : Instructs setup to create a registry value of type REG_DWORD named name and containing the value value.
/PCCREGVALUESZ="name,value" : Instructs setup to create a registry value of type REG_SZ (in other words, string) named name and containing the value value.
/PCCREGPIPELINEPLUGIN="id,pipeline,description": Instructs setup to create a custom command with the information provided. See below for more details.
/PCCREGPIPELINEPLUGINSDISPLAYORDER="id,id,...": Instructs setup to save the display order of custom commands. The display order is a comma-separated list of custom command IDs.

Each setting in Path Copy Copy has its own registry value name. Here is a list of all available values, their data types, accepted values and purpose.

Value name	Data type	Possible values	Purpose
AddQuotes	REG_DWORD	0 (no) or 1 (yes)	If set to 1, will cause Path Copy Copy to surround all copied paths with quotes (").
UseHiddenShares	REG_DWORD	0 (no) or 1 (yes)	If set to 1, Path Copy Copy will use hidden shares when looking for UNC paths (see End-User tab).
AlwaysShowSubmenu	REG_DWORD	0 (no) or 1 (yes)	If set to 0, user will have to hold down the Shift key while right-clicking on a file to get the submenu with all commands.
PluginsInMainMenu	REG_SZ	Comma-separated list of plugin IDs (see below)	IDs of the commands (or plugins) that will be shown directly in the main contextual menu (see End-User tab).
PluginsNotInSubmenu	REG_SZ	Comma-separated list of plugin IDs	IDs of plugins that will not be shown in the submenu.
KeyLock	REG_DWORD	0 (unlocked) or 1 (locked)	If set to 1, will prevent the user from changing the settings. The Settings menu item will not show up in the submenu and launching the Settings application by hand will give an error message.

Command	Plugin ID
Short Name	{C8757DCA-1BA8-48d0-8145-B93BBB9237AF}
Long Name	{3A42B5C6-72D6-4a8a-BA44-014FA64AA11A}
Short Path	{93B362D1-2B13-467a-B618-6784F24F3BA1}
Long Path	{331A3B60-AF49-44f4-B30D-56ADFF6D25E8}
Short Parent Folder Path	{0929538B-5F52-4480-9902-2BBEC9C84905}
Long Parent Folder Path	{349939D7-780F-43fd-A98E-83D9ADD44E22}
Short UNC Path	{891F9E3E-0B70-49fd-A86C-53B21C6193C7}
Long UNC Path	{EA24BCC3-35F5-46b9-A2A5-A12A0AED2D28}
Short UNC Parent Folder Path	{73188FB3-8E14-409c-95EF-BA608FDC1274}
Long UNC Parent Folder Path	{E2C942AC-917C-4aee-A867-8F6AB960BA76}
Internet Path	{8F2ADCCC-9693-407d-9300-FCCB9A12B982}
Unix Path	{5B5DA5CB-3284-45a9-A1E5-4D6B03107924}
Cygwin Path	{CD50DCE3-9A5C-4adf-B552-1741361567D6}

Questions? Issues?

Updated Wiki: Developer

clechasseur — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:30:44 GMT

End-User | Network Administrator | Developer

Getting the source

Cloning the Path Copy Copy repository with TortoiseHg

Building the shell extension

The PathCopyCopy solution

Using Batch Build to build both versions of PathCopyCopy

Building the settings application

The PathCopyCopySettings solution

Building the installer

Compiling the Path Copy Copy setup using Inno Setup Compiler

Plugin development

In Path Copy Copy's installation directory, under Samples\Plugins\COM\C++.
In Path Copy Copy's source tree, under Samples\SampleCOMPluginCpp.

The sample C++ COM plugin project

Opening SamplePathCopyCopyPlugin.h will display the declaration of the COM plugin class. In order to showcase them all, the class implements all three Path Copy Copy interfaces.

The sample plugin class' declaration with the Path Copy Copy interfaces

IPathCopyCopyPlugin interface

The IPathCopyCopyPlugin methods

Base interface that is required for all Path Copy Copy plugins. In contains three methods:

get_Description: Must return the plugin's description string. Will be displayed in the contextual menu to identify the plugin.
get_HelpText: Can return a help text that will be shown in the shell's status bar when the cursor hovers over the plugin's contextual menu item. It is legal to return NULL or an empty string for this.
GetPath: Main work method invoked by Path Copy Copy when it needs to get the path for a particular file or folder. This method can be called repeatedly if the user selected a group of files. It receives the full path to the file as input and must return a path, modified as needed.

IPathCopyCopyPluginGroupInfo interface

The IPathCopyCopyGroupInfo methods

get_GroupId: Must return the group ID (see below) of the group of plugins to which this plugin belongs to. All plugins with the same group ID will appear in the same block in the contextual menu, surrounded by separators.
get_GroupPosition: Must return the zero-based position of the plugin within the group. Path Copy Copy will display plugins in ascending order of group position when displaying the group.

    STDMETHODIMP MyPlugin::get_GroupId(ULONG *p_pGroupId)
    {
        *p_pGroupId = 'MYGP';
        return S_OK;
    }

Furthermore, group IDs composed of all lowercase letters are considered reserved for internal use.

IPathCopyCopyStateInfo interface

The IPathCopyCopyStateInfo method

Optional interface that allows a plugin to specify its state in the contextual menu. It contains a single method:

Enabled: Called when the contextual menu is built to know if the plugin's entry should be enabled or not. The method receives two information to decide: the path of a file that was selected by the user, and the path of its parent directory. In order to be disabled, the method must return S_OK and set the VARIANT_BOOL parameter to VARIANT_FALSE; any other combination of results will leave the plugin enabled.

Plugin registration

    // In dllmain.h
    class CMyModule : public CAtlDllModuleT< CMyModule >
    {
    public :
        DECLARE_LIBID(...)
        DECLARE_REGISTRY_APPID_RESOURCEID(...)

        HRESULT DllRegisterServer(BOOL bRegTypeLib = TRUE) throw();
        HRESULT DllUnregisterServer(BOOL bUnRegTypeLib = TRUE) throw();
    };

    // In dllmain.cpp
    HRESULT CMyModule::DllRegisterServer( BOOL bRegTypeLib /*= TRUE*/ ) throw()
    {
        HRESULT hRes = CAtlDllModuleT< CMyModule >::DllRegisterServer(bRegTypeLib);
        if (SUCCEEDED(hRes)) {
            CComPtr<IPathCopyCopyContextMenuExt> cpPccExt;
            hRes = cpPccExt.CoCreateInstance(__uuidof(PathCopyCopyContextMenuExt));
            if (SUCCEEDED(hRes)) {
                cpPccExt->RegisterPlugin(__uuidof(MyPlugin));
            }
        }
        return hRes;
    }

    HRESULT CMyModule::DllUnregisterServer( BOOL bUnRegTypeLib /*= TRUE*/ ) throw()
    {
        HRESULT hRes = CAtlDllModuleT< CMyModule >::DllUnregisterServer(bUnRegTypeLib);
        if (SUCCEEDED(hRes)) {
            CComPtr<IPathCopyCopyContextMenuExt> cpPccExt;
            hRes = cpPccExt.CoCreateInstance(__uuidof(PathCopyCopyContextMenuExt));
            if (SUCCEEDED(hRes)) {
                cpPccExt->UnregisterPlugin(__uuidof(MyPlugin));
            }
        }
        return hRes;
    }

Questions?

Updated Wiki: Developer

clechasseur — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:30:24 GMT

End-User | Network Administrator | Developer

Getting the source

Cloning the Path Copy Copy repository with TortoiseHg

Building the shell extension

The PathCopyCopy solution

Using Batch Build to build both versions of PathCopyCopy

Building the settings application

The PathCopyCopySettings solution

Building the installer

Compiling the Path Copy Copy setup using Inno Setup Compiler

Plugin development

In Path Copy Copy's installation directory, under Samples\Plugins\COM\C++.
In Path Copy Copy's source tree, under Samples\SampleCOMPluginCpp.

The sample C++ COM plugin project

Opening SamplePathCopyCopyPlugin.h will display the declaration of the COM plugin class. In order to showcase them all, the class implements all three Path Copy Copy interfaces.

The sample plugin class' declaration with the Path Copy Copy interfaces

IPathCopyCopyPlugin interface

The IPathCopyCopyPlugin methods

Base interface that is required for all Path Copy Copy plugins. In contains three methods:

get_Description: Must return the plugin's description string. Will be displayed in the contextual menu to identify the plugin.
get_HelpText: Can return a help text that will be shown in the shell's status bar when the cursor hovers over the plugin's contextual menu item. It is legal to return NULL or an empty string for this.
GetPath: Main work method invoked by Path Copy Copy when it needs to get the path for a particular file or folder. This method can be called repeatedly if the user selected a group of files. It receives the full path to the file as input and must return a path, modified as needed.

IPathCopyCopyPluginGroupInfo interface

The IPathCopyCopyGroupInfo methods

get_GroupId: Must return the group ID (see below) of the group of plugins to which this plugin belongs to. All plugins with the same group ID will appear in the same block in the contextual menu, surrounded by separators.
get_GroupPosition: Must return the zero-based position of the plugin within the group. Path Copy Copy will display plugins in ascending order of group position when displaying the group.

    STDMETHODIMP MyPlugin::get_GroupId(ULONG *p_pGroupId)
    {
        *p_pGroupId = 'MYGP';
        return S_OK;
    }

Furthermore, group IDs composed of all lowercase letters are considered reserved for internal use.

IPathCopyCopyStateInfo interface

The IPathCopyCopyStateInfo method

Optional interface that allows a plugin to specify its state in the contextual menu. It contains a single method:

Enabled: Called when the contextual menu is built to know if the plugin's entry should be enabled or not. The method receives two information to decide: the path of a file that was selected by the user, and the path of its parent directory. In order to be disabled, the method must return S_OK and set the VARIANT_BOOL parameter to VARIANT_FALSE; any other combination of results will leave the plugin enabled.

Plugin registration

    // In dllmain.h
    class CMyModule : public CAtlDllModuleT< CMyModule >
    {
    public :
        DECLARE_LIBID(...)
        DECLARE_REGISTRY_APPID_RESOURCEID(...)

        HRESULT DllRegisterServer(BOOL bRegTypeLib = TRUE) throw();
        HRESULT DllUnregisterServer(BOOL bUnRegTypeLib = TRUE) throw();
    };

    // In dllmain.cpp
    HRESULT CMyModule::DllRegisterServer( BOOL bRegTypeLib /*= TRUE*/ ) throw()
    {
        HRESULT hRes = CAtlDllModuleT< CMyModule >::DllRegisterServer(bRegTypeLib);
        if (SUCCEEDED(hRes)) {
            CComPtr<IPathCopyCopyContextMenuExt> cpPccExt;
            hRes = cpPccExt.CoCreateInstance(__uuidof(PathCopyCopyContextMenuExt));
            if (SUCCEEDED(hRes)) {
                cpPccExt->RegisterPlugin(__uuidof(MyPlugin));
            }
        }
        return hRes;
    }

    HRESULT CMyModule::DllUnregisterServer( BOOL bUnRegTypeLib /*= TRUE*/ ) throw()
    {
        HRESULT hRes = CAtlDllModuleT< CMyModule >::DllUnregisterServer(bUnRegTypeLib);
        if (SUCCEEDED(hRes)) {
            CComPtr<IPathCopyCopyContextMenuExt> cpPccExt;
            hRes = cpPccExt.CoCreateInstance(__uuidof(PathCopyCopyContextMenuExt));
            if (SUCCEEDED(hRes)) {
                cpPccExt->UnregisterPlugin(__uuidof(MyPlugin));
            }
        }
        return hRes;
    }

Questions?

Updated Wiki: Documentation

clechasseur — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 05:26:20 GMT

End-User | Network Administrator | Developer

Purpose

Path of this file: C:\Example\Sample File.txt

Having a file's path can be useful to paste it in another program asking for a file. For example, you can paste the full path of a file in an Open dialog box to quickly open a file without having to navigate to it by hand. If you had an Explorer window already open at the file's location, you can save time. It can also be useful when launching a program from the command-line. There are other uses too; it depends on your workflow. (Note that if you are unsure if Path Copy Copy is useful for you, you can try it for a while and simply uninstall it if you don't find yourself using it enough.)

Requirements

In order to install and use Path Copy Copy, your computer needs to meet these minimum requirements.

Windows XP with Service Pack 2, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2
.NET Framework 2.0 (will most likely be already installed on all these OSes - otherwise, install via Windows Update)

Installing

The Welcome page of the Path Copy Copy's installation wizard

Click Next to navigate the wizard pages. After agreeing to the Path Copy Copy license and choosing an installation directory (the default is usually fine), you will be asked to pre-configure available commands.

Choosing which commands are available during installation

The choice you make on this page will determine the "commands" that will be visible in the Path Copy Copy contextual submenu. The default choice, "commonly-used commands only", will probably be sufficient for most users. Please note that whatever choice you pick, you can always go back later and change the commands in the settings application. Note: this page will not appear if you are upgrading from a previous version.

After the wizard finishes, setup simply disappears and Path Copy Copy is ready for use.

Usage

The various parts of Path Copy Copy

Selecting the default command will copy the selected file's full path to the clipboard. Other path formats are available by selecting them from the submenu:

Just the file's name.
Short path format, which corresponds to the old MS-DOS 8.3 format. Note that this format guarantees that the path contains no spaces.
The file's parent folder path (useful to quickly navigate to that folder).
UNC paths, also known as network paths - useful if you have mapped network drives or files to share with others over a corporate network.
Internet path, using the file:// protocol and with escaped whitespaces - useful to open the file in a Web Browser.
Unix and Cygwin paths, using forward slashes (/) instead of backslashes (\) to separate directories - useful if you're using Unix utilities.

Options

Commands tab

Custom Commands tab

Advanced tab

This tab contains checkboxes for the following options:

Add quotes around copied paths: Paths copied will be surrounded by quotes (").
Use hidden shares when copying UNC paths: Hidden shares are those ending with a dollar sign ($). Creating such a share means it won't show up when other network users look for shares on your machine, but if someone knows the share name, it can be used to access the share. By default, Path Copy Copy does not consider such shares when looking for a share path for a file. If this is selected, hidden shares will be considered. Please note that this also includes administrative shares (\\computername\C$, for example).
Always show submenu: Selected by default, this option makes it so that Path Copy Copy's submenu is always shown in the shell's contextual menu. If this is deselected, you will need to hold down the Shift key while right-clicking on a file to see the submenu.

Custom Command dialog box

Choosing a base command

Configuring options

The second tab of the dialog box, named Options, can be used to alter the path that will be copied to the clipboard when the custom command is invoked. There are several options to choose from.

Enclose path in quotation marks: As the checkbox says, this will cause the path to be surrounded by quotes. Note: if you also choose this option globally, there will be two pair of quotes around the path!
Change slashes: Causes all forward slashes ( / ) in the path to be converted to backslashes ( \ ), or vice-versa.
Find / Replace: Will perform a find/replace operation in the path, replacing all instances of the text entered in the Find what edit box with the text in the Replace with edit box.

Once you are satisfied with your configuration, press the OK button at the bottom of the dialog box to save the custom command. You can cancel the creation/editing by pressing the Cancel button.

Questions? Issues?

Updated Wiki: Documentation

clechasseur — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 05:25:06 GMT

End-User | Network Administrator | Developer

Purpose

Path of this file: C:\Example\Sample File.txt

Requirements

In order to install and use Path Copy Copy, your computer needs to meet these minimum requirements.

Windows XP with Service Pack 2, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2
.NET Framework 2.0 (will most likely be already installed on all these OSes - otherwise, install via Windows Update)

Installing

The Welcome page of the Path Copy Copy's installation wizard

Choosing which commands are available during installation

Usage

The various parts of Path Copy Copy

Selecting the default command will copy the selected file's full path to the clipboard. Other path formats are available by selecting them from the submenu:

Just the file's name.
Short path format, which corresponds to the old MS-DOS 8.3 format. Note that this format guarantees that the path contains no spaces.
The file's parent folder path (useful to quickly navigate to that folder).
UNC paths, also known as network paths - useful if you have mapped network drives or files to share with others over a corporate network.
Internet path, using the file:// protocol and with escaped whitespaces - useful to open the file in a Web Browser.
Unix and Cygwin paths, using forward slashes (/) instead of backslashes (\) to separate directories - useful if you're using Unix utilities.

Options

Commands tab

Custom Commands tab

Advanced tab

This tab contains checkboxes for the following options:

Add quotes around copied paths: Paths copied will be surrounded by quotes (").
Use hidden shares when copying UNC paths: Hidden shares are those ending with a dollar sign ($). Creating such a share means it won't show up when other network users look for shares on your machine, but if someone knows the share name, it can be used to access the share. By default, Path Copy Copy does not consider such shares when looking for a share path for a file. If this is selected, hidden shares will be considered. Please note that this also includes administrative shares (\\computername\C$, for example).
Always show submenu: Selected by default, this option makes it so that Path Copy Copy's submenu is always shown in the shell's contextual menu. If this is deselected, you will need to hold down the Shift key while right-clicking on a file to see the submenu.

Custom Command dialog box

Choosing a base command

Configuring options

The second tab of the dialog box, named Options, can be used to alter the path that will be copied to the clipboard when the custom command is invoked. There are several options to choose from.

Enclose path in quotation marks: As the checkbox says, this will cause the path to be surrounded by quotes. Note: if you also choose this option globally, there will be two pair of quotes around the path!
Change slashes: Causes all forward slashes ( / ) in the path to be converted to backslashes ( \ ), or vice-versa.
Find / Replace: Will perform a find/replace operation in the path, replacing all instances of the text entered in the Find what edit box with the text in the Replace with edit box.

Once you are satisfied with your configuration, press the OK button at the bottom of the dialog box to save the custom command. You can cancel the creation/editing by pressing the Cancel button.

Questions? Issues?

Updated Wiki: Documentation

clechasseur — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 01:59:49 GMT

End-User | Network Administrator | Developer

Purpose

Path of this file: C:\Example\Sample File.txt

Requirements

In order to install and use Path Copy Copy, your computer needs to meet these minimum requirements.

Windows XP with Service Pack 2, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2
.NET Framework 2.0 (will most likely be already installed on all these OSes - otherwise, install via Windows Update)

Installing

The Welcome page of the Path Copy Copy's installation wizard

Choosing which commands are available during installation

Usage

The various parts of Path Copy Copy

Selecting the default command will copy the selected file's full path to the clipboard. Other path formats are available by selecting them from the submenu:

Just the file's name.
Short path format, which corresponds to the old MS-DOS 8.3 format. Note that this format guarantees that the path contains no spaces.
The file's parent folder path (useful to quickly navigate to that folder).
UNC paths, also known as network paths - useful if you have mapped network drives or files to share with others over a corporate network.
Internet path, using the file:// protocol and with escaped whitespaces - useful to open the file in a Web Browser.
Unix and Cygwin paths, using forward slashes (/) instead of backslashes (\) to separate directories - useful if you're using Unix utilities.

Options

Options tab

This tab contains checkboxes for the following options:

Add quotes around copied paths: Paths copied will be surrounded by quotes (").
Use hidden shares when copying UNC paths: Hidden shares are those ending with a dollar sign ($). Creating such a share means it won't show up when other network users look for shares on your machine, but if someone knows the share name, it can be used to access the share. By default, Path Copy Copy does not consider such shares when looking for a share path for a file. If this is selected, hidden shares will be considered. Please note that this also includes administrative shares (\\computername\C$, for example).
Always show submenu: Selected by default, this option makes it so that Path Copy Copy's submenu is always shown in the shell's contextual menu. If this is deselected, you will need to hold down the Shift key while right-clicking on a file to see the submenu.

Default Command tab

This tab allows you to change what the default command will be (the command that shows up directly in the shell's contextual menu). By default, this is set to Copy Long Path, but it can be changed to anything else. Please note that other commands will still be available in the submenu.

Disabled Commands tab

In this tab, you can uncheck individual commands so that they no longer show up in the contextual menu. This can be useful if you never use some of the commands and find they take up a lot of space in the menu. For example, some users could choose to disable the UNC commands if their computer is not on a corporate network.

Custom Commands tab

This tab allows you to configure custom commands that can decide how the path will be copied to the clipboard. This tab contains a list of all existing custom commands as well as several buttons to manipulate them. The Move Up and Move Down buttons allow you to organize the custom commands in the order you see fit. The New button will open another dialog to create a custom command (see below). The Edit button allows you to modify the behavior of an existing custom command. Finally, the Remove button allows you to remove custom commands from the submenu.

Once defined, custom commands can be chosed as the default command, or can be enabled/disabled as normal. Also note that custom commands are user-specific - each user account has its own custom commands (except if some are pre-installed by your network administrator).

Custom Command dialog box

This dialog, spawned by either the New or Edit buttons of the Custom Commands tab of the settings application, allows you to configure the behavior of a custom command. Each custom command can be given a name that will be used to display the command in the Path Copy Copy submenu. Next, there are two steps to configuring the custom command.

Choosing a base command

Configuring options

The second tab of the dialog box, named Options, can be used to alter the path that will be copied to the clipboard when the custom command is invoked. There are several options to choose from.

Enclose path in quotation marks: As the checkbox says, this will cause the path to be surrounded by quotes. Note: if you also choose this option globally, there will be two pair of quotes around the path!
Change slashes: Causes all forward slashes ( / ) in the path to be converted to backslashes ( \ ), or vice-versa.
Find / Replace: Will perform a find/replace operation in the path, replacing all instances of the text entered in the Find what edit box with the text in the Replace with edit box.

Once you are satisfied with your configuration, press the OK button at the bottom of the dialog box to save the custom command. You can cancel the creation/editing by pressing the Cancel button.

Questions? Issues?

Updated Wiki: Network Administrator

clechasseur — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 04:53:29 GMT

End-User | Network Administrator | Developer

Network installation

/SP- : Suppresses the This will install Path Copy Copy... message at the start of the installation.
/VERYSILENT : Suppresses the installation and progress windows. If a reboot is needed, it is executed without asking at end of setup.
/SUPPRESSMSGBOXES : Suppresses all prompts, error messages, etc. during setup.
/NORESTART : Prevents setup from restarting the computer if a reboot was required during installation. This can be useful when installing on a computer that could be in use.
/DIR="directory path" : Instructs setup to install Path Copy Copy in directory path instead of the default directory in Program Files.

A combination of these command-line options should probably be sufficient for typical network installations.

Setting default options

/PCCREGVALUEDWORD="name,value" : Instructs setup to create a registry value of type REG_DWORD named name and containing the value value.
/PCCREGVALUESZ="name,value" : Instructs setup to create a registry value of type REG_SZ (in other words, string) named name and containing the value value.
/PCCREGPIPELINEPLUGIN="id,pipeline,description": Instructs setup to create a custom command with the information provided. See below for more details.
/PCCREGPIPELINEPLUGINSDISPLAYORDER="id,id,...": Instructs setup to save the display order of custom commands. The display order is a comma-separated list of custom command IDs.

Each setting in Path Copy Copy has its own registry value name. Here is a list of all available values, their data types, accepted values and purpose.

Value name	Data type	Possible values	Purpose
AddQuotes	REG_DWORD	0 (no) or 1 (yes)	If set to 1, will cause Path Copy Copy to surround all copied paths with quotes (").
UseHiddenShares	REG_DWORD	0 (no) or 1 (yes)	If set to 1, Path Copy Copy will use hidden shares when looking for UNC paths (see End-User tab).
AlwaysShowSubmenu	REG_DWORD	0 (no) or 1 (yes)	If set to 0, user will have to hold down the Shift key while right-clicking on a file to get the submenu with all commands.
DefaultPlugin	REG_SZ	Plugin ID (see below)	ID of the command (or plugin) that will be shown directly in the main contextual menu (see End-User tab).
DisabledPlugins	REG_SZ	Comma-separated list of plugin IDs	IDs of plugins to disable, e.g. no longer show them in the submenu.
KeyLock	REG_DWORD	0 (unlocked) or 1 (locked)	If set to 1, will prevent the user from changing the settings. The Settings menu item will not show up in the submenu and launching the Settings application by hand will give an error message.

Command	Plugin ID
Short Name	{C8757DCA-1BA8-48d0-8145-B93BBB9237AF}
Long Name	{3A42B5C6-72D6-4a8a-BA44-014FA64AA11A}
Short Path	{93B362D1-2B13-467a-B618-6784F24F3BA1}
Long Path	{331A3B60-AF49-44f4-B30D-56ADFF6D25E8}
Short Parent Folder Path	{0929538B-5F52-4480-9902-2BBEC9C84905}
Long Parent Folder Path	{349939D7-780F-43fd-A98E-83D9ADD44E22}
Short UNC Path	{891F9E3E-0B70-49fd-A86C-53B21C6193C7}
Long UNC Path	{EA24BCC3-35F5-46b9-A2A5-A12A0AED2D28}
Short UNC Parent Folder Path	{73188FB3-8E14-409c-95EF-BA608FDC1274}
Long UNC Parent Folder Path	{E2C942AC-917C-4aee-A867-8F6AB960BA76}
Internet Path	{8F2ADCCC-9693-407d-9300-FCCB9A12B982}
Unix Path	{5B5DA5CB-3284-45a9-A1E5-4D6B03107924}
Cygwin Path	{CD50DCE3-9A5C-4adf-B552-1741361567D6}

Questions? Issues?

Updated Wiki: Network Administrator

clechasseur — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 20:57:08 GMT

End-User | Network Administrator | Developer

Network installation

/SP- : Suppresses the This will install Path Copy Copy... message at the start of the installation.
/VERYSILENT : Suppresses the installation and progress windows. If a reboot is needed, it is executed without asking at end of setup.
/SUPPRESSMSGBOXES : Suppresses all prompts, error messages, etc. during setup.
/NORESTART : Prevents setup from restarting the computer if a reboot was required during installation. This can be useful when installing on a computer that could be in use.
/DIR="directory path" : Instructs setup to install Path Copy Copy in directory path instead of the default directory in Program Files.

A combination of these command-line options should probably be sufficient for typical network installations.

Setting default options

/PCCREGVALUEDWORD="name,value" : Instructs setup to create a registry value of type REG_DWORD named name and containing the value value.
/PCCREGVALUESZ="name,value" : Instructs setup to create a registry value of type REG_SZ (in other words, string) named name and containing the value value.
/PCCREGPIPELINEPLUGIN="id,pipeline,description": Instructs setup to create a custom command with the information provided. See below for more details.
/PCCREGPIPELINEPLUGINSDISPLAYORDER="id,id,...": Instructs setup to save the display order of custom commands. The display order is a comma-separated list of custom command IDs.

Each setting in Path Copy Copy has its own registry value name. Here is a list of all available values, their data types, accepted values and purpose.

Value name	Data type	Possible values	Purpose
AddQuotes	REG_DWORD	0 (no) or 1 (yes)	If set to 1, will cause Path Copy Copy to surround all copied paths with quotes (").
UseHiddenShares	REG_DWORD	0 (no) or 1 (yes)	If set to 1, Path Copy Copy will use hidden shares when looking for UNC paths (see End-User tab).
AlwaysShowSubmenu	REG_DWORD	0 (no) or 1 (yes)	If set to 0, user will have to hold down the Shift key while right-clicking on a file to get the submenu with all commands.
DefaultPlugin	REG_SZ	Plugin ID (see below)	ID of the command (or plugin) that will be shown directly in the main contextual menu (see End-User tab).
DisabledPlugins	REG_SZ	Comma-separated list of plugin IDs	IDs of plugins to disable, e.g. no longer show them in the submenu.
KeyLock	REG_DWORD	0 (unlocked) or 1 (locked)	If set to 1, will prevent the user from changing the settings. The Settings menu item will not show up in the submenu and launching the Settings application by hand will give an error message.

Command	Plugin ID
Short Name	{C8757DCA-1BA8-48d0-8145-B93BBB9237AF}
Long Name	{3A42B5C6-72D6-4a8a-BA44-014FA64AA11A}
Short Path	{93B362D1-2B13-467a-B618-6784F24F3BA1}
Long Path	{331A3B60-AF49-44f4-B30D-56ADFF6D25E8}
Short Parent Folder Path	{0929538B-5F52-4480-9902-2BBEC9C84905}
Long Parent Folder Path	{349939D7-780F-43fd-A98E-83D9ADD44E22}
Short UNC Path	{891F9E3E-0B70-49fd-A86C-53B21C6193C7}
Long UNC Path	{EA24BCC3-35F5-46b9-A2A5-A12A0AED2D28}
Short UNC Parent Folder Path	{73188FB3-8E14-409c-95EF-BA608FDC1274}
Long UNC Parent Folder Path	{E2C942AC-917C-4aee-A867-8F6AB960BA76}
Internet Path	{8F2ADCCC-9693-407d-9300-FCCB9A12B982}
Unix Path	{5B5DA5CB-3284-45a9-A1E5-4D6B03107924}
Cygwin Path	{CD50DCE3-9A5C-4adf-B552-1741361567D6}

Once switch allows you to pre-install some custom commands (see End-User tab) on the computer. These are called pipeline plugins in Path Copy Copy speech. Since their serialization is a bit complex, the easiest way to do it is to create the custom command on your computer and go in the registry to fetch the values needed to pass to the setup exe. Custom commands are stored in the SOFTWARE\clechasseur\PathCopyCopy\PipelinePlugins key under HKEY_CURRENT_USER. The picture below shows you the various parts needed to create the setup command-line switch.

Please note that if you add custom commands via the setup, their IDs can also be used for any configuration value that takes a plugin ID, such as DefaultPlugin.

Questions? Issues?

Updated Wiki: Documentation

clechasseur — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 20:36:42 GMT

End-User | Network Administrator | Developer

Purpose

Path of this file: C:\Example\Sample File.txt

Requirements

In order to install and use Path Copy Copy, your computer needs to meet these minimum requirements.

Windows XP with Service Pack 2, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2
.NET Framework 2.0 (will most likely be already installed on all these OSes - otherwise, install via Windows Update)

Installing

The Welcome page of the Path Copy Copy's installation wizard

Simply keep clicking Next to navigate the wizard pages (you will have to agree to the Path Copy Copy license at some point). The default installation directory is usually OK, but you can install Path Copy Copy anywhere that is accessible to all users of the computer. After the wizard finishes, setup simply disappears and Path Copy Copy is ready for use.

Usage

The various parts of Path Copy Copy

Selecting the default command will copy the selected file's full path to the clipboard. Other path formats are available by selecting them from the submenu:

Just the file's name.
Short path format, which corresponds to the old MS-DOS 8.3 format. Note that this format guarantees that the path contains no spaces.
The file's parent folder path (useful to quickly navigate to that folder).
UNC paths, also known as network paths - useful if you have mapped network drives or files to share with others over a corporate network.
Internet path, using the file:// protocol and with escaped whitespaces - useful to open the file in a Web Browser.
Unix and Cygwin paths, using forward slashes (/) instead of backslashes (\) to separate directories - useful if you're using Unix utilities.

Options

Options tab

This tab contains checkboxes for the following options:

Add quotes around copied paths: Paths copied will be surrounded by quotes (").
Use hidden shares when copying UNC paths: Hidden shares are those ending with a dollar sign ($). Creating such a share means it won't show up when other network users look for shares on your machine, but if someone knows the share name, it can be used to access the share. By default, Path Copy Copy does not consider such shares when looking for a share path for a file. If this is selected, hidden shares will be considered. Please note that this also includes administrative shares (\\computername\C$, for example).
Always show submenu: Selected by default, this option makes it so that Path Copy Copy's submenu is always shown in the shell's contextual menu. If this is deselected, you will need to hold down the Shift key while right-clicking on a file to see the submenu.

Default Command tab

Disabled Commands tab

Custom Commands tab

This tab allows you to configure custom commands that can decide how the path will be copied to the clipboard. This tab contains a list of all existing custom commands as well as several buttons to manipulate them. The Move Up and Move Down buttons allow you to organize the custom commands in the order you see fit. The New button will open another dialog to create a custom command (see below). The Edit button allows you to modify the behavior of an existing custom command. Finally, the Remove button allows you to remove custom commands from the submenu.

Once defined, custom commands can be chosed as the default command, or can be enabled/disabled as normal. Also note that custom commands are user-specific - each user account has its own custom commands (except if some are pre-installed by your network administrator).

Custom Command dialog box

This dialog, spawned by either the New or Edit buttons of the Custom Commands tab of the settings application, allows you to configure the behavior of a custom command. Each custom command can be given a name that will be used to display the command in the Path Copy Copy submenu. Next, there are two steps to configuring the custom command.

Choosing a base command

Configuring options

The second tab of the dialog box, named Options, can be used to alter the path that will be copied to the clipboard when the custom command is invoked. There are several options to choose from.

Enclose path in quotation marks: As the checkbox says, this will cause the path to be surrounded by quotes. Note: if you also choose this option globally, there will be two pair of quotes around the path!
Change slashes: Causes all forward slashes ( / ) in the path to be converted to backslashes ( \ ), or vice-versa.
Find / Replace: Will perform a find/replace operation in the path, replacing all instances of the text entered in the Find what edit box with the text in the Replace with edit box.

Once you are satisfied with your configuration, press the OK button at the bottom of the dialog box to save the custom command. You can cancel the creation/editing by pressing the Cancel button.

Questions? Issues?

Updated Wiki: Developer

clechasseur — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:22:58 GMT

End-User | Network Administrator | Developer

Getting the source

Cloning the Path Copy Copy repository with TortoiseHg

Building the shell extension

The PathCopyCopy solution

Using Batch Build to build both versions of PathCopyCopy

Building the settings application

The PathCopyCopySettings solution

The Settings project is a Windows Forms project that has a single form named MainForm. The other source files contain code to deal with the user settings and plugins. Again, this documentation won't dig into the code. Feel free to explorer if you want to see how settings are changed.

The PathCopyCopySettings solution again has two configurations, Debug and Release, but a single platform named AnyCPU. This is because a .NET application is platform-agnostic by default. In our case, it will run as a 32-bit application if the user is on a 32-bit system, and as a 64-bit application if on a 64-bit system. Again, the Debug configuration is only needed to trace in the code, so Release should be used in most circumstances.

Once you are ready to build the settings application, select Release from the configuration dropdown and Build Solution from the Build menu. The output and object files will be saved in the same place as the shell extension project's, alongside those files. Please note that although the project is platform-agnostic, it is first built in Win32 and then a post-build step is used to copy it to x64 so that both versions of the shell extension will be successfully able to find the application. The application file is named PathCopyCopySettings.exe.

After both projects have been built, Path Copy Copy should be ready to use. Since the COM object has been registered after building, simply right-clicking on a file or folder should show up the Path Copy Copy menu items.

Building the installer

Compiling the Path Copy Copy setup using Inno Setup Compiler

Plugin development

In Path Copy Copy's installation directory, under Samples\Plugins\COM\C++.
In Path Copy Copy's source tree, under Samples\SampleCOMPluginCpp.

The sample C++ COM plugin project

Opening SamplePathCopyCopyPlugin.h will display the declaration of the COM plugin class. In order to showcase them all, the class implements all three Path Copy Copy interfaces.

The sample plugin class' declaration with the Path Copy Copy interfaces

IPathCopyCopyPlugin interface

The IPathCopyCopyPlugin methods

Base interface that is required for all Path Copy Copy plugins. In contains three methods:

get_Description: Must return the plugin's description string. Will be displayed in the contextual menu to identify the plugin.
get_HelpText: Can return a help text that will be shown in the shell's status bar when the cursor hovers over the plugin's contextual menu item. It is legal to return NULL or an empty string for this.
GetPath: Main work method invoked by Path Copy Copy when it needs to get the path for a particular file or folder. This method can be called repeatedly if the user selected a group of files. It receives the full path to the file as input and must return a path, modified as needed.

IPathCopyCopyPluginGroupInfo interface

The IPathCopyCopyGroupInfo methods

get_GroupId: Must return the group ID (see below) of the group of plugins to which this plugin belongs to. All plugins with the same group ID will appear in the same block in the contextual menu, surrounded by separators.
get_GroupPosition: Must return the zero-based position of the plugin within the group. Path Copy Copy will display plugins in ascending order of group position when displaying the group.

    STDMETHODIMP MyPlugin::get_GroupId(ULONG *p_pGroupId)
    {
        *p_pGroupId = 'MYGP';
        return S_OK;
    }

Furthermore, group IDs composed of all lowercase letters are considered reserved for internal use.

IPathCopyCopyStateInfo interface

The IPathCopyCopyStateInfo method

Optional interface that allows a plugin to specify its state in the contextual menu. It contains a single method:

Enabled: Called when the contextual menu is built to know if the plugin's entry should be enabled or not. The method receives two information to decide: the path of a file that was selected by the user, and the path of its parent directory. In order to be disabled, the method must return S_OK and set the VARIANT_BOOL parameter to VARIANT_FALSE; any other combination of results will leave the plugin enabled.

Plugin registration

    // In dllmain.h
    class CMyModule : public CAtlDllModuleT< CMyModule >
    {
    public :
        DECLARE_LIBID(...)
        DECLARE_REGISTRY_APPID_RESOURCEID(...)

        HRESULT DllRegisterServer(BOOL bRegTypeLib = TRUE) throw();
        HRESULT DllUnregisterServer(BOOL bUnRegTypeLib = TRUE) throw();
    };

    // In dllmain.cpp
    HRESULT CMyModule::DllRegisterServer( BOOL bRegTypeLib /*= TRUE*/ ) throw()
    {
        HRESULT hRes = CAtlDllModuleT< CMyModule >::DllRegisterServer(bRegTypeLib);
        if (SUCCEEDED(hRes)) {
            CComPtr<IPathCopyCopyContextMenuExt> cpPccExt;
            hRes = cpPccExt.CoCreateInstance(__uuidof(PathCopyCopyContextMenuExt));
            if (SUCCEEDED(hRes)) {
                cpPccExt->RegisterPlugin(__uuidof(MyPlugin));
            }
        }
        return hRes;
    }

    HRESULT CMyModule::DllUnregisterServer( BOOL bUnRegTypeLib /*= TRUE*/ ) throw()
    {
        HRESULT hRes = CAtlDllModuleT< CMyModule >::DllUnregisterServer(bUnRegTypeLib);
        if (SUCCEEDED(hRes)) {
            CComPtr<IPathCopyCopyContextMenuExt> cpPccExt;
            hRes = cpPccExt.CoCreateInstance(__uuidof(PathCopyCopyContextMenuExt));
            if (SUCCEEDED(hRes)) {
                cpPccExt->UnregisterPlugin(__uuidof(MyPlugin));
            }
        }
        return hRes;
    }